


Crazy

by RanowaOldStuff (Ranowa)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Gen, Nightmares, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, kakashi is a wreck, originally published in 2013
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21841852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/RanowaOldStuff
Summary: Sometimes Yamato thinks Kakashi is crazy. Other times, he thinks he's crazy himself. Maybe they're all crazy.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Yamato | Tenzou
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	Crazy

**Author's Note:**

> More of my ancient stuff, except for this one, I straight up deleted half of the beginning. It was just young!Ranowa trying to be intellectual and Deep, and it was quite apparent that it is a 16 year old trying to be deep, lol. However, I quite liked the second half, and it stands on its own, I find. So- enjoy!

Kakashi usually slept with his shuriken blanket pulled up to his chin, as if it once been acting as a substitute mask but slipped down during the night. Now, the thick quilt was only up to his waist. The jounin normally slept on his side, whether on a mission or safe at home. Now he was flat on his back. He normally did not wear his mask; barring the few years before he had let Team Seven see his face, he'd actually taken to sleeping without it, in Konoha. There was also a mirror lying abandoned against his hip with seemingly no purpose.

This was a frighteningly usual sight for Yamato.

He was now Kakashi's ANBU guard, on those days when he was unresponsive. On those days when not even an earthquake could rouse the jounin, when he was trapped in a genjutsu of endless sleep, an ANBU always stood guard, protecting the copy ninja from any danger from the shadows had been Yamato's duty for years. Ten times, he had had slipped silently into Kakashi's apartment to wait by his senpai's unconscious form. He would sleep until he ran out of Chakra and died or someone dispelled the illusion.

That was what he was there for.

Yamato calmly placed his hands on Kakashi's sternum, probing with his Chakra for his senpai's Chakra coils. The jounin would be unsettled if he awoke in a different position then he had passed out- he knew from experience- and so Yamato fought to stop himself from straightening out Kakashi's limbs from his awkward, spreadeagled position. He just reached out, felt for Kakashi's sedate Chakra flow, and jolted it out of its rhythm.

Kakashi's single grey eye flickered open to a half-lidded, bored gaze. He stared up at Yamato in what appeared to be indifference, disobedient silver hair lying limply on the pillow and shading his eye. He cleared his throat and spoke, voice rough and gravely with disuse. "Thank you."

Yamato nodded stiffly. Kakashi took in another shallow breath and made to sit up, but the wood user made to hold him back. "Senpai, your Chakra levels are low. You need to rest."

"I've been resting for twenty four hours. Anything happen while I was out?"

Yamato sat on the edge of the jounin's bed, shaking his head slightly. "No. It was quiet."

"Aah." Kakashi let out a quiet sigh, then actually did sit up, ignoring Yamato's flustered protests. He looked a little sore, a little tired, from the strain of using a Sharingan genjutsu for twenty four hours straight- but also immeasurably relieved. He stretched slightly, then slowly rolled out of bed with a pained grunt. "Thanks, Yamato."

"Thank you for calling me Yamato."

Kakashi shrugged one shoulder, grey eye lit with a mischievous delight. "I'm too tired to try and bother you now. Don't worry. I'll be back to teasing my favorite kohai tomorrow."

"I'll look forward to it, Senpai," he deadpanned, but maybe he was being serious. Yamato didn't know himself.

Kakashi ignored the comment, just stretched again and gave a jaw-cracking yawn before traipsing out of the bedroom, leaving the wood user to his own devices. Yamato simply watched.

He had never been able to quite understand how Kakashi did it. He was so desperate to avoid- what was he avoiding? Yamato didn't quite know what would happen if he didn't sleep through this day. This day that was the anniversary of something that he didn't even know, because Kakashi would never say and Yamato would never ask; the other ANBU sometimes murmured something about someone named Obito, and he wanted nothing at all more than that. He didn't know what it was he was remembering, and he didn't know what he was avoiding- he hadn't known Kakashi for that long, but the rumors were horrific. Whatever it was that Kakashi was afraid of, it had to be terrifying, terrifying or excruciatingly painful, and probably both. But Kakashi would go from willing to do anything he had to do to escape the memories to just… normal.

Or as normal as Kakashi got.

Sometimes, the insanity that was Kakashi gave Yamato a headache. A very bad headache that called for so, so many glasses of sake to just make him forget about all of this.

Then, other times, Yamato thought he was just a little crazy himself, because he didn't find Kakashi's way of coping at all odd. He didn't think it strange at all that Kakashi just woke from the genjutsu, walked out to the memorial stone, and then straight to the Hokage Tower for a mission. He didn't find it strange at all, then sometimes, he did, and the insanity that was Kakashi made even less sense then than it had before.

Everything was just a little crazy. Not just Kakashi; everything in this whole damn village was crazy. Everything and everyone. All the broken shards of a person that made up an ANBU, an ANBU captain, they all drifted apart and shattered, only held together by tenuous strings comprised of ritual and habit and quirks. Quirks like Anko's wild drinking binges, like Genma traversing the village and having sex with anything that had the correct number of limbs and was willing, like Raidou playing his violin so fast and so hard his hands bled, like Gai projecting an aura of energy and happiness, the energy and happiness he gave himself to protect. Everyone knew jounin and ANBU were a little crazy. No one seemed to care they were only that way because they'd lost almost everything and had to fight to hold themselves together.

And Yamato knew he was crazy too. Only a glutton for punishment would stick to Kakashi like glue on the days when the jounin slept rather than confront the ghosts of his past. Because only Kakashi could make him think like this, mope about their lifestyle and whether it was really worth it, giving up everyone they loved and everything that made them human just to preserve the lives and happiness of all those who enjoyed peace within Konoha's walls. Sometimes Yamato wondered if he would end up like Kakahsi- but then he realized that Kakashi was only like this because he had lost everyone he loved and still slaved on, every piece of himself handed over for the village to use. Yamato had never loved anyone in the first place.

So, in that regard, he was safe.

"Yo, Yamato."

Yamato turned, raising his gaze from Kakashi's bed to Kakashi himself. The jounin stood slouched in the doorway, hands in his pockets, half-lidded gaze alert. It probably helped that Kakashi looked a little crazy, too. Yamato didn't know if he could handle it if Kakashi looked entirely normal, looked like a civilian and then Yamato had to watch something that seemed just so _normal_ revert back to running and hiding from memories that would have long ago made a weaker man go mad.

"Is there a reason you seem to have fallen in love with my room? You can leave now."

"Aah… yeah. …See you, Kakashi-senpai."

Kakashi's eye curved upwards, but it didn't even seem like a smile this time. The silver-haired jounin turned, and Yamato followed him out. But Kakashi wasn't leading him to the door, he just moved along to dig through his fridge for something edible. Yamato watched him for a moment, struck by the stiff return to normalcy, then just turned and tried to leave.

The moment his foot was out of the door, a half-gloved hand came to rest firmly on his shoulder. Yamato jumped and twisted, but Kakashi's masked expression was unreadable.

He just stood there silently for a moment, then leaned forward and brushed masked lips against his cheek. "That was a thank you. Ne, Yamato, please be here to do this for me next year? Don't know if I could handle having memories about you, too."

Yamato hated when Kakashi talked like this. He felt sick at the topic of his own hypothetical death and didn't like discussing it. But then he also felt warm inside at the thought that at least someone would miss him.

Maybe that was gruesome, morbid, or disgusting. Yamato didn't particularly care.

"…I'll be here, Kakashi-senpai."

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always welcome and appreciated!


End file.
